RE: GG 3 Cornered World

["Junichi Miyazawa" <Junichi_Miyazawa@msn.com>]

Dave wrote:

>Just a wee bit 'o trivia that may help to explain the enigmatic 
>title of Gould's favourite novel.  The Japanese have a saying - >
>'Shikata ga nai' that tends to get used in any intractable 
>situation.  A literal translation might be - 'The situation doesn't 

>have four sides'.  Somehow a square view of the world is the 
>norm in the Japanese psyche.

Being a Japanese in Tokyo, I don't think the literal translation
of "shikata" is "four sides".  The word literally means "way".
That's all. So, "Shikata ga nai" means "There is no way to do."

However, I agree with the statement that "a square view of 
the world is the norm in the Japanese psyche."

Now back to the epigraph: 

    Epigraph:
    "An artist is a person who lives in the triangle 
   which remains after the angle which we may call
   common sense has been removed from
   this four-cornered world" 

I.Menguc wrote:

>But, what do the other three corners represent? 
>Since i did not read the book i struggle to contemplate 
>a  four cornered world. Any details in the book, 
>or any ideas? This is , I think, important in the 
>sense that, other than common sense, an artist is 
>more or less like the others. Or is he?  

(I had written the body of the following before I read Dave's mail): 

I don't think the other three corners represent any
elements.
The "four-cornered" stands for a square, in Japanese,
"shikaku", which reminds a space, or a world,  which is 
closed with four lines too rigidly to feel comfortable 
to live in. Accoring to the author, I think, 
ordinary people live in such a four-cornered 
world which requires "common sense" to live in,
but artists cannot stand to be there.  So they escape
from the four-cornered world into anothere world
which does not require "common sense".  The author,
Soseki, called it "the three-cornered world".

I am always wondering why the translator named the 
translation "The Three-Cornered World"?
The original title is _Kusamakura_ that is a journey.
It is a journey of an artist who decide to see everything
without "compassion".

Anyway, do read it, everyone.

Natsume Soseki, 
_The Three-Cornered World_ (Kusamakura), 
tr. by Alan Turney,
Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1968. (paperback)

Ask Japanese bookstores in New York or in London.
If not available, let me know via e-mail.

Junichi



I